Foundering ship heading toward rocks - Anonymous employee Xcel Energy Employee Review

There are 2 companies here. One is the management levels including the ineffective and overpaid c suites. They have grandiose ideas about how everything will be awesome and great while the company is failing. The other portion is the people who actually do work who pay for the horrible leadership from above. Just this year hiring “pauses” were enacted for the line workers while we hired directors and above for downtown. The budget was cut multiple times because we are not meeting stock targets. Not that we didn’t make money, we didn’t make enough. Then we get recognition programs suspended because they cost money. Late this year was a layoff of 2% of the company that was a huge surprise. This layoff sent the already low morale basically to rock bottom. Now non union employees are fearful for their jobs as the executives keep saying we are going to restructure for more efficiency and to be nimble. It’s obvious they have some Lean consulting group telling them this stuff and that they will make us more productive by forcing us to do more. Do more with less isn’t being said but it’s expected. Many personnel haven’t been paid properly since the rollout of new pay software and the company hasn’t corrected it yet after more than six months. Pay here is not as competitive as what they tell you either. They cherry pick data and then tell you what they want you to believe. Do not work here as a salaried employee. Don’t. You are an infinite resource that gets no overtime and can be used and abused which many are. If you work here get in the union which can protect you from the whims of executive management. The C suite management here has driven the actual company that does work to the brink of failure with their bad decisions and focus solely on the stock dividend because it directly affects their bonuses. Money drives every decision and every policy. There are 2 things the executives care about, the stock price and the company public image. They give lip service to how hard it was to lay off people and how they understand how we feel in emails and the all hands meetings but they have lost the trust of the workers which may never be restored. Most employees are now just working for a paycheck if the system decides to pay them this week. The dedicated employees have been burned out and broken by the mismanagement of the company so they do the minimum. That coupled with the large loss of headcount over the last few years have made it difficult to accomplish the work just to keep units running. Executive management is constantly shoving the new software solution to not having enough staff down our throats with little to not training. SAP was a great example. Now we have HR software that messes up pay and none knows how to operate but it is going to save us person hours and so much money. Just another example of how the top decides how the bottom should work. Not surprising when you look at the upside down pyramid org chart with a huge number of executives for what is not a big company. I used to enjoy coming to work and now I feel like a dog being dragged to the vet everyday I walk in the doors. The constant worry about being eliminated is also a weight that many are carrying. Many of my coworkers are actively searching to get out of the company as fast as they can or trying to get into the union.